Apr 24 2025
Few wildflowers make an entrance quite like lupines. Their tall flower spikes rise above meadows, roadsides, mountain slopes, and garden borders in shades of blue, violet, pink, yellow, white, and combinations of several colors. A large stand of lupines can transform an ordinary landscape into something theatrical almost overnight. It is easy to understand why …
Apr 22 2025
A smooth pebble or weathered seashell can become a tiny piece of art with little more than acrylic paint and a handful of dots. This beach-inspired craft is especially beautiful because the natural objects already provide the shape of the design. Rounded pebbles lend themselves to circles, flowers, spirals, and radiating patterns, while scallop shells …
Apr 17 2025
When the sun disappears and most familiar backyard birds settle down for the night, another group of remarkable flying animals begins its shift. Bats emerge from trees, caves, bridges, buildings, rock crevices, and other daytime roosts to search for insects, fruit, nectar, fish, and other foods. Some navigate darkness with extraordinary echolocation systems. Others pollinate …
Apr 14 2025
With their bright bills, black-and-white feathers, and slightly comical walk, puffins look almost too charming to be real. But behind that colorful appearance is a remarkably well-adapted seabird built for a life spent diving, fishing, flying, and surviving on the open ocean. There are three living species of puffin: the Atlantic puffin, horned puffin, and …
Apr 07 2025
Every April 7, International Beaver Day celebrates one of nature’s most remarkable builders. Beavers may look like oversized, slow-moving rodents, but their ability to reshape streams, build wetlands, and create habitat for other wildlife has earned them the nickname “nature’s engineers.” Few animals alter their surroundings as dramatically as beavers do. A single family can …
Mar 22 2025
Connecting with nature does not require a wilderness vacation, a long hike, or hours of free time. It can happen in a backyard, on a neighborhood walk, beside an open window, or during a few quiet minutes in a local park. The goal is simply to pay a little more attention to the natural world …
Mar 18 2025
Guerrilla gardening is the practice of planting flowers, vegetables, trees, or other greenery in neglected spaces, often with the goal of making a neighborhood more beautiful, useful, or ecologically valuable. The idea has a rebellious history. Some early guerrilla gardeners planted on vacant lots or forgotten strips of land without formal permission, treating unused urban …
Mar 16 2025
Every March 16, National Panda Day celebrates one of the world’s most recognizable animals: the giant panda. With their unmistakable black-and-white coats, round faces, and almost constant appetite for bamboo, giant pandas have become international symbols of wildlife conservation. They are also a conservation success story. After decades of habitat protection, research, and international cooperation, …
Mar 09 2025
A good pair of binoculars can completely change the way you experience bird watching. Suddenly, a tiny shape high in a tree becomes a warbler with distinct markings, a distant hawk becomes easier to identify, and the movement of birds across a marsh or shoreline becomes much easier to follow. But choosing binoculars can be …
Feb 11 2025
Spring tides are periods when the difference between high tide and low tide is greater than usual. Despite the name, they have nothing to do with the season of spring. They happen because of the combined gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun. When the Sun, Moon, and Earth line up during a new …
